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Are Students Online Ready? How to Boost Student Success and Completion Rates

05/02/12

Thrust into online learning at scale in 2005 in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina--a disaster that put 45 percent of its physical campus out of
commission--New Orleans-based Delgado Community College experienced the aftershock
of realizing that many of its students were not "online ready." Success
rates--and therefore retention and completion rates--suffered just because of a
student skills gap in online education.

A self-guided online learning module,
DORM--Delgado's Online Readiness Module--has made a big difference even as a doubling of enrollment since 2006 has
put further pressure on available classroom space at Delgado. CT spoke about DORM with Delgado Assistant Dean Rene Cintron (photo, above), who leads institution-wide planning and research activities relevant to student success and retention under the college's Quality Enhancement Plan.

Mary Grush: Are students today really not prepared to hop right into online learning without
some type of training?

Rene Cintron: They are really not prepared. A general knowledge of how to use computers and some
experience being online helps, but does not necessarily prepare them for
success in an online learning environment.

Grush: How did Delgado determine that?

Cintron: In a very dramatic way, in the beginning. In 2005, nearly 45 percent of our physical campus was destroyed or rendered non-operational by hurricane Katrina. Of course this resulted in a sudden lack of classroom space, and we were basically forced into online
learning to make up the difference. It was a big shock at the time, to see how
ill-prepared students were for this transition.

Since then, we've also faced a huge growth in enrollment,
which has compounded our classroom space issues. Enrollments grew from nearly
10,000 in Spring 2006 to more than 20,000 in Fall 2011. We are still offering a
lot of online courses to address our issues with the availability of physical
classrooms, but since Katrina, we've taken the step of building the DORM
module to address student preparation for
online learning.

Grush: How has Delgado tracked the success rates of online students?

Cintron: We discovered in the fall of 2007, that our success rate for online education was
less than 60 percent--with "success" defined as passing an online course with a
grade of "C" or better. Since the implementation of DORM in 2010, we’ve raised
that success rate overall: 77 percent of the students who completed the
assignments in DORM successfully passed their credit-bearing courses with a
final grade of "C" or better (almost as good as the pilot, which reached an 80
percent level); the rest, those students who did not elect to do the DORM
assignments, had a 71 percent success rate using the same criteria.

Grush: Is completing the DORM readiness module optional? It looks like you might be reaching a significant percent of the students who really need DORM.

Cintron: It's optional at this point. About 65 percent of our new online students access the module. And yes, I think you can see from the numbers that we are reaching many
students who know that they need to bring their online readiness skills up.

In 2008, 30 percent of our online students reported that
they needed help with the course management system that we use (Blackboard).
Our further research confirmed that students not "getting" the technology was
the main stumbling block in their success or failure in online courses. That
was when we decided to develop DORM as a self-help option for students, with a
self-assessment readiness test. The pilot was conducted in 2009, and DORM was fully implemented in 2010.

All new online learners are enrolled with the option of choosing whether to complete the modules or not--it's a non credit-bearing course, so what they do is up to them. While
DORM is not mandatory for students at Delgado to complete, more than half of
the students enrolled in the module do complete it.

Grush: What are the major components of DORM?

Cintron: The DORM module provides students with information and
applications in two major areas: (1) study skills for online students,
including pointers to extensive resources at Delgado and (2) course management
system-specific knowledge. The DORM course deliverables that must be completed
in order to successfully complete the module are: (1) a written assignment, (2)
a discussion assignment, (3) a send-and-receive e-mail activity, and (4) an "Am
I Online Ready?" quiz. The assignments have clear instructions on how to
complete them as well as directing students to three places where they can get
help: (1) the Course Management System Skills folder in the Course Documents
tab (2) the Delgado Live Web site under the Help button, and (3) an Ask the
Instructor section.

Students can continue their credit-bearing online courses while they work on the DORM module over the first two weeks of class in a self-paced manner. The module is staffed by instructors
that answer questions, guide discussion, grade assignments, and provide
Socratic-style feedback every 12 hours. Of course this is in addition to all
the other resources students can access at Delgado, including a 24/7 telephone
help desk. Students can continue accessing DORM for the rest of their college
life at Delgado.

Grush: What are the college's plans for DORM and your studies of student success online?

Cintron: DORM continues to help students acquire the technical
skills necessary for online learning success, which of course helps the college
with retention and success rates in general. Our focus to this point has been
the successful student and simply fixing this problem of a gap in online
readiness. Now, as we continue to collect data surrounding student success in
online courses, and data on DORM use, we are shifting to further analyze the
unsuccessful student. For example, we will explore the correlation between
those who ask questions in the DORM module and those who are not successful in
online courses. Another area of inquiry will be within the data based on
developmental status and course content. The next step for DORM itself involves
expanding this tool to flex and hybrid courses with the intention of having all students enrolled in the Delgado Online Readiness Module by Fall 2012.